On Being “Church” in a Cookie-Cutter World
Conformity May Be What Makes the Cookie Crumble
Today, as we Redeemer Ambassadors head out on our 69th church visit, I came across this. I suspect I found this at this link in my snippet folder where I cut and paste things for some unknown future use.
Thomas E. Frank, a seasoned observer of church life, writes about turning to ethnographic practices of listening as a way to escape what he perceived to be market-driven perspectives prevalent in church-improvement literature. He found most of that writing to be largely prescriptive, tending to depict a congregation “as a franchise in a service industry, completely missing the remarkable imaginative life of a community of persons who stay together over time, practicing a faithful way of life together.” As an alternative approach, he favors a disposition toward ethnography that “honors this particular congregation, the one right in front of me, the one I am serving.”
Ethnography is a descriptive act that is not for the sake of sharing best practices of exemplary congregations alone, but, more significantly, to help readers see their own context from a new angle. “The soul thrives on contemplating difference,” Frank writes, “for if I see your place and symbols clearly, I can see my own more distinctively as well.” In addition, he says, “Imagination is sparked by the juxtaposition of opposites, the collision of difference.” Laying distinct worlds side by side can sometimes allow an unexpected view to emerge.
Our visits reveal remarkable similarity from church to church. The similarity is often in the leadership. The personality in the congregation is often revealed in interactions with the people.
That’s also where most churches come into conflict.
Deep down inside most pastors want to have successful ministries that fit some sort of imagined ideal. The people will love their sermons and eagerly volunteer to do whatever leadership determines needs to be done. Parents will bring their children to church-sponsored programs and events. Church council leaders will listen to a pastoral report with waiting accolades. The neighborhood will want to come and join this wonderful community that centers on their leadership. Who wouldn’t!
Lay people populate this imaginary world. But they are real, live people—not gingerbread men. They have their own sense of what an ideal church would be. Some of their ideas are shaped by long association with Church. Increasingly, the church serves a world that is unfamiliar with its teachings and customs.
The temptation is to take these groups of people called congregations and tell them what’s what. Mold them. Whip them into congregational shape—all the easier for the next pastor, any pastor, to work with.
Result: conformity.
This is a market-driven approach. Create a product (church) and sell it.
What happens with this approach in the market? All IPods are the same. You might have a choice of black or white! What an IPod can do will soon be copied by every other manufacturer of similar products.
And so churches become rather cookie-cutter in nature. It doesn’t matter where you go to church. You’ll be limited in your expression of faith by the structure of conformity.
More’s the pity. When things are all the same, only people who are comfortable with “same” fit in. That excludes a host of people.
Continuing the quote:
Even though you may be a leader in your congregation, you should learn to occasionally practice being an observer, listening closely to the people in your congregation, at times withholding your immediate response in order to slowly and carefully tease out a full description of another person’s way of seeing things. As Frank says, “Paying attention is . . . a spiritual discipline that not only centers one’s life but opens the way to entirely unanticipated dimensions of experience.”
Perhaps you will find yourself stepping back for a moment to really pay attention to a person who typically drives you crazy. Instead of retreating to a time-honored response, you may just pause, listen, and turn to wonder about the story that lies beneath a strongly held belief about the salary of the youth pastor or the designated parking space for ushers. You may even go poking around to see if you can unearth the story. In given a listening ear, the story may release its power into a form more accessible to being used by God’s Spirit.
Remember the story of St. Lawrence. (See the Martyrdom section at this link.)
The people of the church are your treasure.
Fashion ministry around them and in keeping with the Word — which doesn’t require conformity, just belief.
Conformity is mostly our idea. God made each of us different for good reasons.